Return and 'A Day Without Rain'

Following a five-year break, she released the Grammy winning A Day Without Rain in 2000 featuring 37 minutes of new material (34 minutes on the US version). The album is Enya's most successful to date, peaking at #2 on the US Billboard Album charts. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, her song Only Time (from A Day Without Rain) was used as a backdrop in many radio and TV reports about the attacks. She initially frowned upon this use, especially when many bootlegged versions of Only Time mixed with sound effects from the attack began to appear.

Enya eventually agreed to release a special edition of the song with funds going to the families of victims. Many Enya fans, however, are resentful that her music has been linked with the attacks; an example of this occurred on a 2002 appearance on CNN's Larry King Live when images of battle in Afghanistan were shown on screen as she performed May It Be, a song with little war connection.

Enya is self-admittedly a slow worker when it comes to composing music. As a result, fans have had to wait as long as five years between albums. A new song called Sumiregusa (Wild Violet) was set to words from a Japanese poem Roma Ryan had written. In September 2004, the song was unveiled in Japan as part of an advertising campaign for Panasonic. In announcing the new recording, Warner Music Japan stated that Enya's next album was scheduled for release (in Japan at least) in mid-November. Enya issued a press release on her official Web site on 19 September stating that this was a mistake and no new album was immediately forthcoming.